Roary writes: "The Straight Dope has a 4 part report on copyright's history, fair use, infringement, and other protections for intellectual property.
Part 2 coverts fair use and answers the question: "My friends say that ripping songs from a CD or movies from a DVD is "fair use" and that it's not illegal to copy these things as long as I don't charge for the copies. Is that true?""